Calls to reform Australian Immigration System

What are the flaws of the system when it comes to wooing skilled migrants to work in Australia? The Productivity Commission highlights the issues in its latest report.

A report released by the Productivity Commission is calling for the immigration system of Australia to be reformed. The Australian Points System, which the campaigners of Brexit have named as something that the United Kingdom should follow, is being called to be reformed so that attracting younger, more skilled migrants, who also are better in speaking and writing in English, can be made easier.

The Productivity Commission report was released on Monday, and it has also recommended that family reunion visas need more tight restrictions and that the special investment visas be abolished. The Special Investment visa grants fast-track residency rights to individuals in exchange for investment.

Mr Boris Johnson, and Mr Michael Grove, who are both the leading supporters of pro-Brexit belonging to the Conservative party, gave high praise to the Australian points-based system as it allowed tight control over migration while working on filling in the country’s skills shortages.

According to Vote Leave, the United Kingdom should create a system similar to Australia’s by the year 2020 so that ”for relevant jobs, we will be able to ensure that all those who come have the ability to speak good English.”

Ms Theresa Mary May, the prime minister of the UK, has since declined to adopt a system such as this. The Productivity Commission of Australia has also highlighted in its report some of the system’s issues when it comes to enticing possible skilled migrants.

”The current skilled migration programme falls short of generating the best outcomes for the Australian community,” read the report. ”..In essence, it does not adequately target migrants who are younger, more skilled and who have higher English-language proficiency.”

It was also said by the commission that one of the current system’s weaknesses was that it lets temporary skilled workers nominated by employers to be awarded permanent residency without having to go through a skills test. It also supports the introduction of a single universal points test for all those who have submitted an application, and introduces a requirement for proficiency in the English language.

Australia is seen to be one of the most multi cultural countries in the developed world at present with more than ¼ of its population (24 million) born from other countries. It functions on a migration programme based on skills, and it awards residency to migrants so shortages on labour are met in an economy which has benefited from 25 years of growth without the economy succumbing to recession.

In polls, it shows that the public are still disposed to migrants, and favourably so. Just recently however, the far right party One Nation has just won 4 seats in the Senate after a campaign that largely criticises Muslim immigration which in their opinion, is demonised.

The high level of immigration however, which by 2060 is being predicted to further add another 13 million people to the present population of the country which is 24 million, is calling for the government to reassess both the benefits and the costs of its own migration programme.

Canberra asked the Productivity Commission to check into whether the country should go ahead and move to a programme that will be mainly based on charging migrants for visas from its ”points-based” skilled migration programme, and keeping access to government supports in the process. The report said that the government can save anywhere from A$20 to $25 billion by operating on a ”price-based system” instead. However, they recommended against the implementation of one as it could lower down migrants’ educational level and end up with a degradation in the number of skilled migrants with an English language proficiency considered high, and damage integration prospects in the process. Calls to reform the Australian Immigration System is urgent.

”Immigration is not intrinsically suited to a price-based system,” the commission further said.

The commission asked if the present high levels of immigration are made good over the long term because of the pressures which new migrants place on the housing and land prices, and the impact they have on local services and infrastructure. It says that these effects should be carefully considered when it comes to deciding on the migrant intake and notes that that gains in the community depend on enticing immigrants who are younger and who are more skilled, and policies that are perceptive to social, environmental, and economic conditions.

It was also recommended in the report that the significant investment visa scheme in Australia be abolished, which since it was created back in November of 2012, has granted residency to individuals in return for an investment of anywhere from $5 million to $15 million Australian dollars. By the end of July, the visa scheme was able to generate A$7.4 billion worth of investments in return for a total number of 1,483 visas, and 90 percent of which were designated to nationals from China.

It was also stated in the report that this type of programme was sensitive to fraud, and gave a warning that it came from immigrants who have an older age profile as well as a lower English language proficiency.

”Overall, the case for retaining the significant and premium investor visas programmes is weak,” the report said. In 2014, Canada put an end to an investment visa scheme that is similar in nature.

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Source: www.ft.com